January: Cold
Storms, snow and cold
I love a storm. Big wind. Lots of rain. Inches of snow. The ferociousness of the natural world snaps everyone awake: we are tiny in the midst of all of this. So of course I wasn’t home for the massive storm with almost two feet of snow hit the east coast on January 24 and 25.
Where was I? Pinnacles National Park in California. While those at home shoveled, I hiked about through desert-like land in a sweatshirt, falling in love with Acorn Woodpeckers and delighting in the “spring flowers.” But really, I went to the park to see…California Condors. Pinnacles—a beautiful, rocky, isolated park--is known for its condor recovery program and almost one-hundred live in the park. On a hike I saw nine circling overhead. I won’t try and describe the feeling of seeing these enormous birds (a nine-and-a-half-foot wingspan!) that hovered so close to extinction (only 80 birds left at one point; now there are around 350). In times when so many of the givens of our world seem to be crumbling, it seems that we can do the right thing, offer places for animals to live and breed. There are condors. I hold on to the image of the birds loafing about in the sky, oblivious of how much I admired them.
Though I missed experiencing that storm, there was plenty of shoveling to do on the return, and plenty of cold to go with it. This is by far the snowiest and coldest winter I have experienced in years (0 for several mornings in a row), bringing ever more birds to the feeders. I know I’ve gotten soft in recent years, the temperatures rarely dipping below freezing for days at a time and I wonder as well about the animals about the house and how they are experiencing this cold. The Juncos collecting seeds off the ground near the feeder are puffed out to keep warm; the opossum I saw daily at the beginning of the month has vanished; bobcat prints lace the woods and I hope it is finding something to eat. Stay warm, all friends, and Happy New Year!
The beautiful volcanic rock of Pinnacles National Park
Shooting star—one of many beautiful spring flower
Number 92 (all condors have a wing tag) sunning